Always Already Podcast is a three-part radio show featuring book discussions and interviews with scholars/activists about critical theory, as well as impromptu advice-giving. We discuss a different critical theorist each episode who writes about political and social worlds from different angles. Join us!

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a critical theory podcast

political economy

In this special anniversary episode, your founding co-hosts John, Rachel, and B tackle the deconstruction of capitalism in J. K. Gibson-Graham’s classic The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Challenging the (constructed) essential wholeness of capitalism’s presence in modern theoretical (and everyday) discourses, Gibson-Graham breaks capitalism in a thousand pieces in order to understand its multi-faceted connections. How has Marxism contributed to capitalism’s hold on the theoretical mind as something total, singular, unified? How can we understand multiple economies instead of “the economy”? Should, or can we, save Marx from Marxism? In what ways can Gibson-Graham’s work coincide with the complexities of daily life in gendered, sexed, and racialized modes of existence? Join the team as they work to undo the connective tissues holding capitalism, as we know it–and their foibles along the way. Plus, in My Tumblr Friend from Canada, we answer a question about “critical theory.”

Remember to support us on Patreon to help offset/reimburse the cost of our fancy new microphone, which we have named Lacan.

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Thanks to Leah Dion, Rocco & Lizzie, and B for the music.

This week we read Saskia Sassen’s Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy, an exploration of the underlying systems of logic that drive displacement, resource extraction and, ultimately, inequality. Sassen discusses the financial tools, strategies and “instruments” by which corporations and nations amass land, wealth and resources, from the securitizing of subprime mortgages leading to the financial crisis, to the extraction of resource from countries whose public sector shrinks in response. Listen as Rachel, B, and John discuss why this read was so refreshing and illuminating for theorists like us, especially as a model for incorporating data and concrete, contemporary examples into critical political/social theory. Why expulsions and not ‘neoliberalism’ or ‘capitalism’, we ask and and attempt to answer. We also lament the sad lack of advice questions and dreams in need of analysis from our listeners, and talk about Hegel party fouls instead. We know this will change in advance of our next episode! Why? Because we trust you.

Thanks to dmf from the Synthetic Zero website for suggesting the Sassen text. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. This episode’s music by Jordan Cass and by B.

Join your faithful podcast hosts B and John as they welcome special guest-host Erika Iverson and delve into neoliberalism. We discuss chapter 9 – on American neoliberalism – from The Birth of Biopolitics by Michel Foucault “Neoliberal Worlds” from Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Weaving the economic, the political, the state, and the historical ontology of neoliberalism is no small feat–but our hosts take on the challenge with gusto.We explore how to define neoliberalism, whether it should be defined, securitization, neoliberalism and the state, how neoliberalism and racism interact, how to teach neoliberalism, and more. Some of the more contentious and most contemporary topics include racial violence, the protests in Ferguson, MO, and immigration. We hope you enjoy this fascinating look into the connective tissues of neoliberalism(s) and lived experience.

In the “My Tumblr Friend from Canada” segment, we dispense invaluable advice on starting a band (hint: start a queer metal band), and how to say no to things in academia (and how none of us can do this).

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Advice questions to submit? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 here. RSS feed here. This episode’s music by Ricky Perry of Go-getter and by B.